


When Everything Stops

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 17:39:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag to episode 3x20</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Everything Stops

**Author's Note:**

> with grateful thanks to dogeared for beta

When time stutters to a halt, it's 3.12am, three nights after the funeral. Steve isn't sleeping – he hasn't slept much since he brought Freddie home, just enough to cut through the buzzing in his head – and the house is silent around him. His mother's gone – moved to some new place while he set a grenade beneath another man's back – and he's glad of the quiet, the something-like-peace that presses down on him like a weight, that holds him in place between the driveway and the shore. When everything stops he's tinkering in the garage, ducked back under the hood of his father's car, and he's tightening a lug nut when his hand begins to shake, and he drops the wrench he's holding, and everything rushes in.

Flashes – Freddie; the soft, dark pitch of the forest floor – sounds – "Hey, Champ . . ."; the shriek of birds; retort of his gun – light – white marble; disorienting sunlight – darkness – no rest; the dirt on his hands – echoes – laughter; a soft hiss of pain – red – dark blood on the walls, on the floor – sixteen – not dying, she died, she's dead – 

Danny. 

_Leave the box or get arrested, all right?_

_You gonna call for backup?_

_An ambulance._

Steve sits down hard on the floor.

\-----

Steve hears Danny coming, for all that Danny's probably trying to be quiet. He'd like to get up, shift from where he's leaning against his father's old workbench, put some sort of front between himself and Danny's brand of honesty, but he's spent, wrung out, and besides, he made the call.

"I've known better places to hang out," Danny says, walking around the car. His hair's messed up and his t-shirt's worn thin. "You look like shit," he offers conversationally. 

Steve half nods a response.

Danny gestures at the car. "Still working on this thing? You got a streak of optimism in you, babe, I gotta tell you . . . "

"You do the math?"

Danny tilts his head, stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Math?"

"Freddie. Freddie, my dad, when it happened, this . . ." 

Danny nods slowly. "I figured it out."

Of course he did. "Smart."

"Smart would have worked it out before you had to go." Danny comes a little closer, sits down and folds his legs, props his elbows on his knees. "Smart would have been waiting for this phone call since your mom came home."

"It's not my mom – "

"It's your mom, Steven. It's your mom, and your dad, and your sister, and your friend, and it's – "

"We had to – " Steve grits his teeth against the wave of sickness that breaks over him, recedes. "We only had backpacks, no other way to move. To bring him home . . . " He grimaces, lets it pass. "I had to pack him up, bone by bone. 

(Darkness – no rest; fresh dirt on his hands.)

"Jesus." 

(Light – white marble; disorienting sunlight.)

"I think I'm losing it."

"No." Danny's calm. "You're grieving."

Steve throws him a look. "Don't."

"Don't, huh?" Danny looks like he's considering it. "Lemme ask you -- you sit down here regular? Some 4am thing? Or is this maybe, just maybe, a new thing, a today thing, a just got home thing, huh?"

It's Danny's patience that gets to Steve – it cuts, and he wants to bleed. He screws up his face, tries to hold things back, but it's bigger than him. "I know how to handle this." His voice cracks.

"I know."

"You don't break. You do the job."

"And you did it."

"I never – I didn't, not when he died, not when my father – "

"Steve." 

Steve opens his eyes, looks over, blinks to clear his vision. He's already a mess, he realizes, face wet, hands turned palm up against the garage floor. Defenseless.

"You're not that guy anymore. You're _this_ guy. And I gotta say, I like this guy plenty, this guy who'd grieve so hard he'd fold under the weight of it. This guy who's lost too much."

Steve presses his lips together, wary of the trembling in his jaw. "Danny – "

"Right here, babe. Always gonna be right here." And Steve isn't sure if he moves himself or if Danny pulls him in, but when he shakes again it's beneath Danny's hands, jammed up against Danny's shoulder, and Danny's talking to him while the memories roar loud enough to drown out the meaning of what he says.

(Freddie – his daughter; dog tags in the sun – Danny – fury; kindness; dolphins; chicken wings – family – arms locked, freezing in the surf; rookie; ". . . great quarterback" – Catherine – at his six – Doris – _alive_ – his father – "Hey Champ," – Freddie – "I'm not going anywhere," – Hawaii, _home_ , "an ambulance," ohana – )

Danny. "You all right? You with me? Steve. C'mon buddy, check in with me here."

The roaring begins to fade. He's stiff and sore as if he's bruised, and his throat feels raw. 

"You okay, babe?"

He tries out his voice. "Maybe." He sounds wrecked even to his own ears.

"Maybe, okay. Okay, I can work with maybe." Danny presses a kiss to a crown of Steve's head and it's so easy, fond, that Steve can't find the words to name it. "You need food, my friend. I'll make eggs."

Which stirs him. "Your eggs suck."

"Eggs, some toast – you buy the bread with flax again? I swear, your tastebuds – bacon; not that you'll have any unless Doris left the goods behind – juice; that I can rely on. Coffee. God, coffee. Okay, we gotta move . . ."

The world starts spinning on its axis again, motion enough that Steve staggers as he stands, has to lean on Danny to steady himself. "No eggs," he says weakly.

Danny cups his hand beneath Steve's elbow, and he smiles, and Steve thinks again of meeting him, guns drawn, badges at ten paces. "No eggs, I got it." He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "But I insist on the joe, you understand me?"

Steve nods, and the memories still beat their wings, but time flows easily again, and he marvels that he's understood.


End file.
